Rush Limbaugh on Health Care

Conservative Talk-show Host

FactCheck: No, ObamaCare has no effect on capital in economy

"Health care, that's 1/6--1/6!--of the US economy, 1/6 of our GDP," he declared in July 2009. "You take that out of the private sector. That means the private sector has shrunk by 1/6. That means there's less capital for people
to compete for and earn, and there's less opportunity for that remaining 5/6 (and it's going to be less than that because all this other stuff's going to take even more of the private sector) to grow."

First of all, the Obama plan maintains the private health insurance system and private health care providers. Second, even if the private health care sector magically ceased to exist,
it would not reduce the amount of capital available in the rest of the economy for investment and opportunity.

FactCheck: No, end-of life counseling isn't a "death panel"

One of his most outrageous lies about health care spread the myth that "death panels" were part of Obama's plan. Limbaugh claimed, "Page 427: Government mandates program that orders end-of-life treatment. Government dictates how your life ends."
Absolutely nothing on page 427 (or anywhere else in the bill) says government will dictate how a person's life ends; in fact, it explicitly protects "enabling orders for life sustaining treatment."

After a conservative doctor called into the show supporting the plan to have end-of-life discussions with patients, Limbaugh continued, "That's what the counselors are preparing these people for: end of care, 'cause they're getting old and it isn't
going to be worthy of investment. It's right in the House bill!" Once again there was nothing about hiring counselors in the House bill. There was nothing about imposing "end of care." Yet Limbaugh persisted with the fake story of death panels.

1994: Whitewater is about health care

Rush Limbaugh routinely told his 20 million radio listeners that "Whitewater is about health care." I finally understood that, yes, it was. The ongoing Whitewater investigation was about undermining the progressive agenda by any means.

One afternoon in
Seattle at the end of July 1994, I pulled into town as part of the Health Security Express. Inspired by the Freedom Riders who traveled by bus across the South in the early sixties to spread the message of desegregation, health reform advocates organized
this nationwide but tour in the summer of 1994.

Local and national radio hosts had been inciting protestors all week. One of them had urged listeners to come down and "show Hillary" what they thought of me. At least half of the 4,500 people who
came to my speech in Seattle were protesters.

The protests were openly sponsored by a group called Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). Reporters eventually discovered and disclosed the fact that CSE worked in concert with Newt Gingrich's office.

Health care has problems, but no crisis for drastic change

Hillary Clinton is attempting to solve a phony crisis-health care. Yes, we’ve got a problem, but it is not a crisis, and its solution should not be concocted in a crisis atmosphere. It’s the usual liberal modus operandi. They overstate a problem and work
society into a frenzied state in order to justify their invariable, big-government solution. What Hillary and Bill are about to do is undermine the best health-care system in the world in the name of fairness and equity.

The Clintons stirred up
passions and fear by citing the misleading statistic that 37 million Americans are without health-insurance coverage. A CBO study, however, shows that 51% of those were uninsured for less than four months. Many others choose not to be covered.

There
was no health-care crisis in this country, at least not until Hillary got her mitts on it. And the problems we have-like escalating costs-were caused primarily by the very kinds of liberal interventionist programs Hillary is now proposing.

Deregulate health care; government is the problem

Government intervention-specifically the Medicaid and Medicare programs-is the biggest reason costs are escalating in health care today. When Medicare began in 1965, it cost taxpayers about $3 billion per year. It was projected back them that by 1990 the
price would rise to $9 billion per year. The 1990 bill was actually $67 billion per year. The pointy-headed theoreticians who devised this program made the mistake of assuming they were operating in a zero-sum game. They never imagined that the very
creation of their program would increase demand for medical services.

What happens when the government pays for all medical care is that limits must be placed on the amount of care that can be offered. Thus, with Rodhamized medicine, you will always
have rationing of care in one form or another. Government is not the solution, Ronald Reagan used to say. Government is the problem. Further intrusion is not the answer. Competition is. We need deregulation, not more government control.

Drug abuse & unsafe sex cause AIDS, not homophobia

Ever since the AIDS crisis became politicized I have been leery of those who claimed that their primary purpose was to find a cure for the disease. My doubts were confirmed in January 1990. AIDS activists had begun to employ a strategy of confrontation,
accusing various government agencies for the spread of the disease. This was a transparent attempt to deflect attention away from the drug abuse and unsafe sex, which are responsible for the spread of over 90% of all cases of AIDS, & focus blame for the
disease on so-called homophobes who opposed sufficient funding for research and a cure. As a result, the notion evolved that money-and only money-could rid us of the horrors of the HIV virus.

[Because some organizations won’t accept help or money from
conservatives], there’s good money and bad money in the fight against AIDS. This established that there were some things more important than a cure; that ideology mattered as well! If you were a conservative you had no place in the fight against AIDS.